Rebecca
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- This article is about the biblical matriarch. For other uses of the word Rebecca, see Rebecca (disambiguation)
Rebecca (also Rebekah, also Rivkah, Hebrew: רִבְקָה, Standard Rivqa Tiberian Riḇqāh, "to tie; to bind; captivating") is the wife of Isaac and the second matriarch of the four matriarchs of the Jewish people. She is the mother of Jacob and Esau. Rebecca and Isaac are one of the three "pairs" buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, together with Abraham and Sarah and Jacob and Leah.
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[edit] Early life
According to the account in the Book of Genesis, Rebecca is the daughter of Bethuel and the granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham's brother. She is the sister of Laban, who will later become the father of Rachel and Leah, two of the wives of Rebecca's son Jacob.
The news of her birth is told to her great-uncle Abraham after the latter returns from Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac), the episode in which Abraham was told by God to bring Isaac as a sacrifice on a mountain.
After the Binding of Isaac, Sarah, Abraham's wife, dies. After taking care of her burial, Abraham goes about finding a wife for his son Isaac, who is already at least 37 years old. He commands his servant Eliezer of Damascus to journey to his birthplace of Aram Naharaim to select a bride from his own family, rather than engage Isaac to a local Canaanite girl. Abraham sends along expensive jewelry, clothing and dainties as gifts to the bride and her family. If the girl refuses to come, Eliezer will be absolved of his responsibility.
Eliezer devises a test in order to find the right wife for Isaac. As he stands at the central well in Abraham's birthplace with his men and ten camels laden with goods, he prays to God:
"Let it be the the maiden to whom I shall say, 'Please tip over your jug so I may drink,' and who replies, 'Drink, and I will even water your camels,' her will You have designated for Your servant, for Isaac" (Genesis 24:14).
To his surprise, a young girl immediately comes out and offers to draw water for him to drink, as well as water to fill the troughs for all his camels. Rebecca continues to draw water until all the camels are sated, proving her kind and generous nature and her suitability for entering Abraham's household.
Eliezer immediately gives her a golden nose ring and two golden bracelets (Genesis 24:22), which Rebecca hurries to show her mother. Seeing the jewelry, her brother Laban runs out to greet the guest and bring him inside. Eliezer recounts the oath he made to Abraham and all the details of his trip to and meeting with Rebecca in fine detail, after which Laban and Bethuel agree that she can return with him. After hosting Eliezer and his men overnight, however, the family tries to keep Rebecca with them for another 10 months or a year. Eliezer insists that they ask the girl herself, and she agrees to go immediately. Her family sends her off with her nurse, Deborah, and blesses her, "Our sister, may you come to be thousands of myriads, and may your offspring inherit the gate of its foes."
As Rebecca and her entourage approach Abraham's home, they spy Isaac from a distance in the fields of Beer-lahai-roi. The Talmud[1] and the Midrash explain that Isaac was praying, as he instituted Mincha, the afternoon prayer. Seeing such a spiritually exalted man, Rebecca immediately dismounts from her camel and asks Eliezer who it is. When she hears that he is her future husband, she modestly covers herself with a veil. Isaac brings her into the tent of his mother Sarah, marries her, and loves her. According to Rashi, the three miracles that characterized Sarah's tent while she was alive, and that disappeared with her death, reappear when Rebecca enters the tent. These were: A lamp burned in her tent from Shabbat eve to Shabbat eve, there was a blessing in her dough, and a cloud hovered over her tent (symbolizing the Divine Presence.)
[edit] Wedding allusions
Some of the events leading up to the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca have been institutionalized in the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony. Before the bride and bridegroom stand under the chuppah, they participate in a special ceremony called badeken (veiling). The bridegroom is led to the bride by two escorts and, seeing her, covers her face with a veil, similar to the way Rebecca covers her face before marrying Isaac. Then the bridegroom (or the father of the bride, or the officiating rabbi) recites the same blessing over the bride which Rebecca's family recites over her, "Our sister, may you come to be thousands of myriads, and may your offspring inherit the gate of its foes."[2]
[edit] Marriage and motherhood
There are two opinions in the Midrash as to how old Rebecca is at the time of her marriage. According to the traditional counting cited by Rashi, Isaac is 37 years old at the time of the Binding of Isaac, and news of Rebecca's birth reaches Abraham immediately after that event (see Rashi on Gen. 22:20). Isaac is 40 years old when he marries Rebecca (Gen. 25:20), making Rebecca 3 years old at the time of her marriage. According to the second opinion, Isaac is 29 years old and Rebecca is 14 years old at the time of their marriage.[3] In either case, they wait 20 years to have children. Throughout that time, both Isaac and Rebecca pray fervently to God for offspring. God eventually answers Isaac's prayers and Rebecca conceives.
Rebecca is extremely uncomfortable during her pregnancy and goes to inquire of God why she is suffering so. According to the Midrash, whenever she would pass a house of Torah study, Jacob would struggle to come out; whenever she would pass a house of idolatry, Esau would agitate to come out. Rebecca worries that the one child she thinks she is carrying is schizophrenic. She receives the prophecy that twins are in her womb. The two children that are fighting in her womb will continue to fight all their lives. The prophecy, which Rebecca does not share with her husband, continues that these two nations will never gain power simultaneously; when one falls, the other will rise, and vice versa. In addition, the elder will serve the younger.
When the time comes for her to give birth, Rebecca delivers twins. The firstborn emerges red and hairy all over like a full-grown man; onlookers name him Esau, from the Hebrew: עשוי, assui, meaning "completely developed." The second son comes out grasping Esau's heel (Hebrew: עקב, ekev), and is named יעקב, Jacob (a play on the word "heel"). The Torah states that Isaac is 60 years old when the twins are born.
The boys display very different natures as they mature. "Esau became a hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a simple man, a dweller in tents" (Gen. 25:27). Moreover, the attitudes of their parents toward them also differ: "Isaac loved Esau because game was in his mouth, but Rebecca loved Jacob" (ibid., 25:28).
On the day that Abraham dies, Jacob prepares a lentil stew as a traditional mourner's meal for his father, Isaac.[4] Esau returns famished from the fields and begs Jacob to give him some of the stew. (He refers to the dish as, "that red, red stuff," giving rise to his second moniker, Hebrew: אדום, Edom, lit. "red".) Jacob offers to give Esau a bowl of stew in exchange for his birthright, and Esau agrees.
At a later time, a famine strikes the land of Israel and Isaac moves his family, upon God's command, to Gerar, which is ruled by Abimelech, king of the Philistines. Like Abraham before him, who called Sarah his "sister" rather than his "wife" so that the Egyptians would not kill him and take his wife, Isaac tells the people of Gerar that Rebecca is his sister. She is not molested, but one day Abimelech looks through their window and sees Isaac "sporting" (a euphemism for sexual play) with her. Abimelech calls Isaac on his lie, and then warns others not to touch Rebecca.
Isaac settles in Gerar and becomes very wealthy, reaping "a hundredfold" from his large crop. The Philistines envy him, and conflict breaks out over the matter of wells which Abraham had dug there, and between Isaac's herdsmen and the herdsmen of Gerar. Eventually Isaac parts from Abimelech in peace.
At the age of 40 (the same age his father had been when he married), Esau takes two Hittite wives — Judith the daughter of Beeri and Basemath the daughter of Elon — who vex Isaac and Rebecca no end, as these women are idol worshippers. According to Rashi, one reason why Isaac becomes blind in his old age is due to the smoke of the incense that these women offer to their idols.
[edit] Deceiving Isaac
In his old age, when Isaac becomes blind, he decides to bestow his blessing on his firstborn son, Esau. He sends Esau out to the fields to trap and cook a piece of savory game for him, so that he can eat it and bless Esau before he dies.
Rebecca prophetically overhears this conversation and realizes that Isaac's blessings must go to Jacob, since she was told before the twins' birth that the elder son would serve the younger.[5] She therefore orders Jacob to bring her two goats from the flock, which she will cook in the way Isaac loves, and to bring them to his father in place of Esau.
When Jacob protests that his father will recognize the deception and curse him as soon as he feels him — since Esau is a hairy man and Jacob is smooth-skinned — Rebecca says that the curse will be on her instead. Before she sends Jacob to his father, she dresses him in Esau's garments and lays goatskins on his arms and neck to simulate hairy skin.
Thus disguised, Jacob enters his father's room. Surprised that Esau is back so soon, Isaac asks how it could be that the hunt went so quickly. When Jacob responds, "Because the Lord your God arranged it for me," Isaac's suspicions are aroused, since Esau never uses the name of God (Rashi on Gen. 27:21). Isaac demands that Jacob come close so he can feel him, but the goatskins feel just like Esau's hairy skin. Confused, Isaac exclaims, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau!" (27:22). Still trying to get at the truth, Isaac asks him point-blank, "You are my son, Esau?" and Jacob answers simply, "I am" (meaning, "I am me," not, "I am Esau"). Isaac proceeds to eat the food and drink the wine that Jacob gives him, and then he blesses him with the dew of the heavens, the fatness of the earth, and rulership over many nations as well as his own brother.
Jacob has just left the room when Esau returns from the hunt to receive his blessing. The realization that he has been deceived shocks Isaac, yet he acknowledges that Jacob deserves the blessings by saying, "Indeed, he shall remain blessed!" (27:33). Rashi explains that Isaac smells the heavenly scent of Gan Eden (Paradise) when Jacob enters his room and, in contrast, perceives Gehenna opening beneath Esau when the latter enters the room, showing him that he had been deceived all along by Esau's show of piety.[6]
Esau is heartbroken by the deception, and begs for his own blessing. Having made Jacob a ruler over his brothers, Isaac can only promise, "By your sword you shall live, but your brother you shall serve; yet it shall be that when you are aggrieved, you may cast off his yoke from upon your neck" (17:40).
Esau is filled with hatred toward Jacob for taking away both his birthright and his blessing. He vows to himself to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac dies. Here again, Rebecca prophetically perceives his murderous intentions and orders Jacob to travel to her brother Laban's house until Esau's anger subsides. She convinces Isaac to send Jacob away by telling him that she despairs of him marrying a local girl from the idol-worshipping families of Canaan (as Esau has done). After Isaac sends Jacob away to find a wife, Esau realizes that his own Canaanite wives are evil in his father's eyes, and he takes a daughter of Ishmael as another wife.
[edit] Death and burial
Jacob lives with Laban for 20 years (Gen. 31:41), marrying Laban's two daughters and two maidservants. As he is returning to Canaan with his large family, servants, and possessions, Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, dies and is buried at a place that Jacob calls Alon Bachuth (אלון בכות), "Tree of Weepings" (Genesis 35:8). According to the Midrash,[7] the plural form of the word "weeping" indicates a double sorrow, implying that Rebecca also dies at this time. Her death is not mentioned explicitly for several reasons:
- She must be buried secretly. Had she had the type of burial she deserved, Esau would have attended and everyone would have spoken of Rebecca disrespectfully as the one who gave birth to such a wicked son. (Rashi, quoting Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Teitzei 4)
- She is buried in tragic circumstances: Isaac is blind and cannot come to honor her properly; Jacob is away; and Esau refuses to come because he still hates her for taking away his blessings. Therefore, the Torah does not want to mention that she must be buried by her Hittite neighbors. (Ramban on Genesis 35:8)
According to tradition, Rebecca is buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
[edit] References
- ^ Berachot 26b.
- ^ Jewish Wedding Ceremony Explained.
- ^ Torah Insights: Parshat Toldot.
- ^ Bava Batra 16b.
- ^ Scherman, p. 135.
- ^ Pirkei d'Rav Kahana, quoted in Scherman, p. 139.
- ^ Bereshit Rabbah 81:5.
[edit] Sources
- Scherman, Rabbi Nosson. The Chumash. Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1993.
[edit] External Links
Nicholas Poussin's 'Rebecca at the Well'
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